Officials said the solution to traffic congestion at toll plazas lies in equipping toll lanes so that electronic tags can be read, 100% coverage of RFID FasTags in all vehicles and earmarking dedicated lanes only for vehicles with tags.

Projects in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and West Bengal — populous states that are seen critical to the electoral fortunes of the ruling BJP — are being taken up on priority. The party had won 200 seats in these states in 2014.

"We have already started monetising our operational NHs and we are leasing them out to international funds for 30 years. They pay us upfront and we give them the right to collect toll. The return is high as traffic in India is growing," said Gadkari.

Travel between Palwal and Kundli will become seamless and the commute time will come down by half to just one-and-a-half hours from next month with the opening of the six-lane Eastern Peripheral Expressway.

Dheeraj Hinduja, chairman at India’s second largest truck maker Ashok Leyland, prefers a low profile, but with managing director Vinod Dasari leaving at the end of the month, he says he’s become more “hands-on”.